1.Front section - IUCN

Building support for protected areas through tourism 11
government tourism associations in the region and
Tourism NSW. Many small tour companies and
accommodation providers include the Centre as a
highlight to complement their individual product and
marketing. Park staff work closely with the NSW
Department of Education providing environmental
education resources including CDs, a web site linked
to the higher school certificate geography curriculum
and teachers’ kits for field trips (Kennedy, 2001).
They are also actively involved in environmental
research with a number of universities. This has
included numerous studies relating to the
effectiveness of the interpretation at the site.
Researchers have worked with the site manager to
develop an educational mission for MRC “educating
about rainforest conservation and its symbiotic
relationship to cultural heritage conservation through
a living experience of the forest. The fostering of an
attachment to heritage is sought through the widest
possible sense of experiential education…” (Staiff and
Bushell, 2004). The site is seen as a keeper of stories
and a story-telling place about connections to nature.
These include ancient and contemporary indigenous
relationships to the site, early European agriculture,
including cedar logging and dairying responsible for
the destruction and clearing of much of the forest, a
place of romance, of family picnics and recreation in
the cool forest and its scenic waterfalls, of poetry and
spectacular photography, and as a place of meditation,
particularly for a local Buddhist temple, and as a place
of great interest to scientists, locals and tourists. The
NPWS is actively engaged in this research to ensure
the environmental message is more effective in
enhancing visitor concern for conservation and their
enjoyment of nature.
Support local and indigenous community
development and poverty alleviation
through nature-based tourism
Turtle Island is a 14 room five-star luxury resort
located on a 200ha privately owned island (Nanuya
Levu) in the Yasawas group of islands, Fiji. Purchased
in 1972 by Richard Evanson, who remains as owner
manager, the island was uninhabited and degraded
after decades of neglect, overgrazing and clearing.
Flora and fauna were depleted, soils eroded and the
ecosystems, including mangroves, coral reefs and
beaches, were damaged. Mr Evanson made a
commitment to restore the island and help the local
community. Tourism became the vehicle to achieve
these goals. Turtle Island has implemented a range of
innovative environmental and community-based
programmes and activities to achieve these objectives.
This includes planting over one million trees
established from a nursery set up on the island.
Vegetation cover has grown from around 10% to over
82% across the island, halting erosion and provided
habitat for birds and wildlife that are again rich in
diversity and number.
All solid waste is composted on the island. With no
natural streams, several dams have been built to
ensure abundant water supply. Some 90% of fresh
fruit, vegetables and herbs are grown in the resort
garden. Reforestation has provided timber for
building works. Local staff have been retrained in
environmental management and rehabilitation,
market gardening, complex carpentry, and building,
as well as work within the resort operations.
Due to the vision of the resort and the special visitor
experience, philanthropic gestures are quite common.
In 1992 the Yasawas Community Foundation was
established to receive guest donations for special
projects in the Turtle Island communities. Because the
area has no secondary schools, they have been
providing scholarships to assist local children to go to
high school on another island. The Foundation recently
committed $200,000 to assist Turtle Island to build a
secondary school. The school opened in 2002, and now
has 38 students across three forms, with four teachers.
Turtle Island has been augmenting the quality of
health care available through the provision of several
health care resources. This includes responding to the
endemic problem of blindness due to cataracts and
diabetes. For the past 13 years, the resort closes for
one week, and a team of medical professionals who
have themselves been guests at the resort, donate their
time on a pro-bono basis to set up a full eye clinic. In
this time more than 11,000 Fijians have had their eyes
tested, more than 9,000 pairs of glasses have been
issued free of charge, over 1,000 operations have been
performed (mostly cataracts, and 20 corneal
implants). The clinics are now operating from Savu
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